Ecosystem Service Value Response to Different Irrigation and Drainage Practices in a Land Development Project in the Yellow River Delta
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper takes an unused land development project in the Yellow River Delta as an example, which designs five different irrigation and drainage modes, analyzes the changes of land use structure under different modes, calculates its ecosystem service value, and further clarifies the development and management direction of saline alkali land. I only have some concers that need to be clarified:
1.The number of keywords is lower, and it is suggested to increase to 5 words.
2.Paragraphs 4-7 of the preface have low relevance to the research content. The main body of this part should be the research progress on the value of ecological services at home and abroad, but the relevant content is less, and it is suggested to supplement it accordingly.
3.It is suggested to add value description to “salt content” in 2.1.
4.In Materials and methods, the data from the statistical yearbook and official website of EPS data need provide the website and indicate the data year.
5.In part 2.4, it is not necessary to compare the advantages and disadvantages of different calculation methods in the experimental calculation part. It is enough to briefly explain the source of the reference method.
6.In Section 3.1, the table reference is wrong, and table 2 should be modified to table 3.
7.The international common Chinese currency unit is RMB, please modify the relevant units in the text.
8.Figure 3 has no corresponding text content in the text, and the corresponding text explanation shall be indicated in the above.
9.The discussion content is not adequate. It is suggested to expand the comparison with other studies and the interpretation and analysis of the results of the article.
10.It is noted that your manuscript needs careful editing by someone with expertise in technical English editing paying particular attention to English grammar, spelling, and sentence structure so that the goals and results of the study are clear to the reader.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
This study focuses on the ecosystem service value on various irrigation and drainage modes in Yellow River Delta, which draw a better mode under the premise of protecting ecological balance development in the development of unused land. This paper style is properly organized. The result is innovative and helpful for the agricultural development in this region. Although there are some deficiencies, I am still willing to give minor revision.
Some detailed comments are as follows:
Abstract
1. what are meaning and significance of ecosystem services values under irrigation and drainage modes? It should be firstly underlined in the abstract.
2 Line 11-16"In order to quantitative estimate the ecosystem services values under various irrigation and drainage modes, an undeveloped land development project in the Yellow River Delta was applied as an example to simulate five different irrigation and drainage modes, and combines the market value method and the factor equivalent calculation method."? The purpose of adopting the two methods also needs to be further clarified.
3 For the summary of the results, specific calculation data can be added to make it more intuitive.
4 Line 36-37 “… via drainage”, the irrigation should be also covered here.
5 Line 37-38, the sentence "The success or failure of managing saline soil is directly impacted by the drainage, which causes salt to accumulate (Mitra, S P and Shanker, H1957)."is inconsistent with the above statement. Will drainage reduce or increase salt accumulation? Drainage can only reduce the salt accumulation in this area.
6 The drainage technology should simple introduce in the beginning of third paragraph (Line 40-46). And the short sentence could be adopted for easy understanding.
7 The Yellow River Delta area's drainage and salt discharge projects also need to be introduced. And why is it used in this paper?
8 The significance and calculation of ecosystem service value on various modes must be descripted in the introduction.
9. Line 108 The "deep soil" needs further explanation. Please show the detail data if possible.
10 Please refer to the international soil classification again to confirm whether tidal soil and tidal salt soil are in the international soil classification.
11 Please draw fig. 1 again. The legend is not clear for reading.
12 The five irrigation and drainage modes adopted in this paper are suggested to be expressed by abbreviations in the following text, such as IO, Po, etc.
13 Line 194-216, This part was not result rather the description of various modes. Please move it to the “2.3 Data sources”
14 There are too many contents in the conclusion. It is suggested to simplify and summarize according to the research objective for avoiding repetition of the previous results
Other comments
15 In the structure of the article, it is suggested to put the discussion part before the conclusion.
16 The syntax and grammar of the article need to be further improved. It is suggested that this paper should be revised and perfected by native English speakers so as to make the language more natural.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Reviewer 3 Report
Reviewer’s comments on manuscript ‘Ecosystem service value ………Yellow River Delta’ by Si-meng Chen and Guang- hui Jiang’
The paper evaluates ecosystem service values for 5 simulated irrigation and drainage models for an undeveloped land development project in Yellow River Delta in China. It is appreciable that this exercise has been done prior to actual implementation of a land reclamation (remediation) project to decide on appropriate design schemes which have high ecosystem values based on production, ecology and aesthetic parameters.
The subject of the paper is very topical; however the paper in present form lacks cohesion and clarity and has oversights in presentation. The authors seem to assume that the readers have basic background knowledge of the referred and briefly discussed concepts and methodologies, which is always not the case. The paper is recommended for reconsideration for publication after a major revision, keeping in mind the importance of subject matter.
Critical observations
1. The title seems Ok, the authors may consider replacing the words ‘an unused’ by ‘a’ or even ‘- an example of an unused’ by ‘in’
2. Abstract: Please add some quantitative salient results discussed in sections of results and discussion. In line 19, replace ‘a single’ by ‘only an’.
3. Introduction: In general well written.
(a) What is meant by ‘shallow subsurface depth’ in Line 34 since deep soil is mentioned in a later section. Is it to mention shallow subsurface water or groundwater? Please add ‘inadequate’ before ‘drainage’ in line 38.
(b) There is a complete repetition of text in lines from 40- 50. This may be looked into.
© What is meant by ‘civilization construction’ in line 69?
4. Materials and methods:
(a) Five irrigation and drainage models are repeated mentioned and discussed in full text. It is suggested to define these once as 5 designs: e.g Design 1 (IC+ OD), Design 2 (PI+OD) and so one and refer these as Design1, Design 2, in text.
(b) Replace ‘sits’ by ‘located’ in line 106. What is meant by ‘EPS’ in line 119.
© Fig 1 is not clear, legends are not visible while there is no scale. Similarly Fig 2 is not clear and is not even mentioned in text. This is a major handicap to explain design features in Table 1, where details of water transmission (irrigation) and drainage systems need to be presented in an uniform way for 5 designs.
(d) Definitely more details of market value and more specifically equivalent factor method need to be included vis a- vis ecological (biodiversity maintenance value, gas regulation and others) and landscape aesthetic value. Methodology for production value of cotton in results (line 218- 225) may be discussed in methodology section and not in results.
(e) More clarity of different land uses like watered, dry land, hardening channels, guttering etc., discussed in results, may be provided in this section
5. Results and analysis
(a) Please elaborate on methodology for creation and simulation of land use structure (line 195) here or in previous section. Replace words ‘Table 2’ in line 197 by ‘Table 3’.
(b) What is meant by raw data in Table 3? Please rewrite sentence in line 208- 210. Please replace ‘Table below’ by ‘Table 4’ in line 226. Quantitative figures (106 yuan) in line 234, 246, 249 and 250 need rechecking; not clear how were these derived.
© Fig 3 represents the same data as provided in Table 4. Scale, designs and ESV values are not clearly visible. Units of ESV are also not presented.
6. Conclusions and discussion
(a) Quantitative figures discussed in second conclusion are not consistent with figures presented in Table 4.
(b) Saline soils, emphasized in introduction and abstract, are not discussed at all in later sections. Same is true for the possible tradeoffs for disposal of saline drainage effluent from open or concealed drainage systems.
7. References in text and in reference section are presented in an arbitrary manner.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for author File: Comments.docx
Author Response
- Authors and publication editors may kindly ensure that references in text and references section are presented in the standard format of the journal.
Referring to the format requirements of water journals for references, retyped the references.
- Design features in Table 2 need to be made brief; only important aspects may be presented.
According to the suggestion, the text statement of the original design scheme was divided into three parts, optimize table layout.
- Following language comments may be looked into:
(a) Please add ‘a’ before ‘land’ in title (Line 2), (b) Delete word ‘different’ in Line 33 ？28？
© Delete word ‘the’ before ‘inadequate’ in Line 53-66, (d) Replace ‘handle’ by ‘control’ in Line 77-69
It has been modified according to the recommendations.
(e) What is meant by ‘subject’ in Line 135？105？
The original translation is easy to cause ambiguity, the original text has been modified as“This article selects the Yellow River Delta region Dongying City Hekou District Beili land development project as the object.”
(f) Explain at least once at appropriately place equivalent of hm2 into Km2 and later also full form of RMB (line 208- 210)
Replaced the unit and added full spelling Renminbi before article first uses RMB.
(g) Please use ‘in the project area’ at end of given title of Table 1 (Line 155)
‘in the project area’ has been added according to the suggestion.
(h) What is meant by China (202+0) in Line 161?
This is because the lack of capital letters causes ambiguity, the complete word is Statistical Yearbook of China(2020), (2020 )refers to the year for which the data used in the article
(i)Replace line 225- 226 by ‘The value of the ecosystem services provided by hardened canal was calculated based on actual conditions’.
(j) Replace ‘is’ by ‘was’ in line 238, 260- 267,
(k) Delete line 289- 291 (repetition)
(l) Use either word ‘modes’ or ‘models’ uniformly in results and discussion section(m) Pl add ‘(CS)’ after ‘sensitivity indices’ in title of Table 7
(n) Add ‘parameter of’ after ‘single’ in Line 424,
(o) Replace ‘essay’ by ‘paper’ in Line 427
(p) Replace ‘Conclusion’ by ‘Conclusions’ in Line 432. Please give full details of different designs (Line 434- 437). Remove words ‘to other modes’ in line 467
(i-p) Replacement, deletion and supplementation have been completed according to the recommendations.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
